When I started working with the development team abroad, they suggested we use Basecamp to stay in synch. I had heard of the company 37 Signals but had never used any of their products so I was really blown away once we got the project up an running. The service includes a message board, shared task calendar, To Do List, a writeboard, and file sharing service and an easily to manage contacts list.
Basecamp screenshot
The team put all of our milestones into the system so now I can go to Basecamp, review the list of upcoming milestones and leave files and comments that I think are useful for the team. Once you upload or insert a new comment you have the option of notifying specific group members which is great because it avoids spamming those people who are not relevant to the update.
I think this software is really a brilliant way to manage a geographically separated group of people where transparency can obviously be difficult and it is hard to get clarity around what each person is doing. I seriously recommend Basecamp for anyone collaborating on not just software development, but anything that could require getting a group of people on to the same page.
I, in my turn, have found about Basecamp from a recruiter who wanted to hire me for one growing US start-up opening their new office in London. We’ve been discussing a project manager position and I told them I’m pretty happy to run my own business for now even if it doesn’t bring that much money, but still I was interested to talk to them and find out what organizational techniques and products they use. Well, I hope it’s not industrial espionage yet
They told me they use Trac and Basecamp and I decided to try Basecamp as we’ve been using Trac extensively by that time. Trac is a powerful ticketing+timeline+wiki+SVN etc tool but it requires lots of customization and is not so good to see all project aspects at once. So my personal opinion that Trac is better to assign tickets to give development or support jobs to your people, so it’s quite good for internal use, but for the project management in general, Basecamp rocks.
Here is a good thread discussing pros and cons of Trac and Basecamp in comparison to each other http://molecularvoices.molecular.com/2007/trac-versus-basecamp/
Currently we do almost everything through Basecamp despite some features that were better in Trac, Trac was free (our Basecamp plan is $50 per month) and was running from our local server, the advantages of Basecamp outweight these factors.
It is interesting that 37signals promote same (or similar) products under different names so you may find Basecamp-like products under different names, with slightly different features and payment plans (some of them are free but that’s for a limited number of projects and basic functionality)
Examples:
http://www.grouphub.com
http://www.backpackit.com
So I back Miguel in his recommendation of using Basecamp for your outsourcing projects – ask your developer which system they use, check if you like it, and if they don’t offer a good solution, you may want to set up your own Basecamp account. It’s easy and very beneficial for your project.
Taras, director,
Injoit.com